Summer wildfires meant Wiltshire firefighters got to other calls less quickly
DWFRS has been called to 900 wildfires this year - matching its record high of 2022
This summer’s wildfires meant Wiltshire firefighters got to other calls less quickly, a committee of councillors has been told.
And the number of fires being started deliberately has almost doubled over the past three months.
Over the quarter the response time for attending fires at domestic properties increased from 11 minutes 33 to 14 minutes 01.
“Wildfires in May affected everything else,” area manager Brad Stevens told, Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Authority’s local performance and scrutiny committee – an all-party group of Wiltshire councillors with oversight of service operations.
Since the beginning of 2025, the fire service has been called to 900 grassland, woodland and crop fires – the same amount as the entire of their previous record year, 2022.
Extended dry spells, heatwaves, and high winds created the perfect conditions for wildfires to ignite and spread rapidly.
One particular incident at Holt Heath, just over the Dorset border, saw firefighters spend six days tackling a wildfire. More than 100 firefighters attended the blaze, which burnt about 69 hectares (170 acres) of land. The fire service believes the blaze was started on purpose.
Meanwhile in Warminster a fire on farmland came perilously close to houses, and garden buildings were destroyed. Seventy five firefighters and 15 appliances tackled the blaze.
AM Stevens said the authority was educating landowners and farmers in creating firebreaks to stop the spread of wildfires.
The number of fires started deliberately, he added, had increased from 68 to 127 for the three-month period year on year. AM Stevens said the fire authority was working with police to identify repeat offenders.
In other areas, though, response times were down: from 14:20 to 12:36 for fires in public places, and from 15:22 to 13:51 for road traffic collisions, where the number of crashes had increased from 60 last summer to 68 this summer.
Fifty eight people were rescued from cars involved in collisions this year, the committee was told.
Accidental fires in homes were up from 39 to 45 for the period year-on-year – with lithium batteries partly to blame for the increase. AM Stevens said the education of e-bike riders – especially those with aftermarket battery kits – was needed.
False alarm callouts to commercial premises, however, had been slashed from 118 last summer to 76 this summer, due to a new practice of confirming the validity of automated alarm calls before attending.
The committee was told that recruitment was another hurdle for the fire authority, with recruiting becoming harder as businesses owners are less inclined to allow employees to become retained firefighters.
Committee chairman Paul Sample acknowledged it had been “a busy summer for the force,” and asked for the committee’s praise for every firefighter to be recorded.